- Christopher Barry 1925 – 2014
One of the great directors of Old Who.
Monthly Archives: February 2014
Links I found interesting for 10-02-2014
- ‘Tainted Love’ Played By Floppy Disk Drives Is Possibly The Best Use Of Technology Ever
A strong claim, but not without merit.
Links I found interesting for 09-02-2014
- People held umbrellas over the people holding umbrellas over him
Sometimes not such a bad world after all.
- 400 is the magic number: scenarios for electing the next Commission president | Europe Decides
Gaming it out.
Not making that mistake again
Last May I gloated that having had the flu jab the previous November (ie 2012), I hadn’t needed time off work for anything more serious than jet lag since.
Apart from back trouble and a one-day tummy bug, that was still true up till last Wednesday. But that morning both Anne and I went down simultaneously with the nasty infection that young F had been struggling through for the previous weeks. I was able to work from home for most of Wednesday and Friday, and even struggled into the office on Thursday afternoon after a morning asleep in bed, but I am utterly pole-axed today. (Anne is a little better, but this is not saying much.) I also appear to have infected my office-mate.
I vowed last year that we would make sure to all get the flu jab before the winter, but we were travelling a lot in November 2013, and somehow just didn’t get around to it. Having been spared the flu for an unprecedented two years, I had forgotten just how miserable it is. Well, that’s one mistake I’m not making again.
My 2011 essays on the Northern Ireland Assembly election for Stratagem
Exporting here for archive purposes.
Will Martin McGuinness be returned as First Minister in the new Assembly? (12 April)
What will change in this Election? (14 April)
How will the boundary changes impact? (19 April)
Women at Stormont (3 May)
Transfers: Myths and Reality (4 May)
Predictions and Swings (5 May)
Media pieces by or about me
Croatian panel debate with two MEPs – the 1.2.2014 edition, starting about 1 minute in.
Serbia’s EU talks, Voice of Russia interview, 22/1/2014, starting 10 minutes in.
Interview on Belfast electoral changes, The Detail, 2/5/2013
Profile of me in Brussel Nieuws (in Dutch, nice picture), 9/3/2013
Comment to Tim Judah of Reuters on UK influence in Europe, 24/1/2013
My profile of disabled Irish political leader Arthur McMurrough Kavanagh for the BBC’s Disability History Month, 6/12/2012
Voice of Russia interview on EU policy in the Balkans, 1/11/2012
Northern Ireland opinion poll analysis by me, Belfast Telegraph, 16/6/2012
Born to be an alien, my profile of Tom Baker’s role in Doctor Who, 29/12/2010
Diplomats for hire, profile of Independent Diplomat in Global Post, 12/4/2010
Two pieces on electoral reform for the BBC, 11/5/2010 and 13/11/2011
Links I found interesting for 08-02-2014
- Alex Salmond is within striking distance of victory. Why hasn’t England noticed?
The Spectator is worried.
- A Spectacular New Martian Impact Crater
Bang!
- Concern after no 2013 Loch Ness Monster sightings
Local white witch claims responsibility.
- How to use Twitter
By @jonworth.
- Finding Haiti’s lost Declaration of Independence
Located at @UKNatArchives by @JuliaGaffield.
- Why Does America Send So Many Stupid, Unqualified Hacks Overseas?
On average, about 1.79 million reasons why.
Links I found interesting for 06-02-2014
- Benedict Cumberbatch and the Sign of Four (or is it Three?)
Sherlock meets Sesame Street!!!!!
- Gagauzia: A new attack on the Eastern Partnership?
Former Georgian ambassador’s take on the under-reported referendum.
Wednesday reading
Woke up feeling terrible, been in bed most of the day.
Current
The Shining, by Stephen King
God's War, by Kameron Hurley
Science Fiction: The 101 Best Novels, by Damien Broderick and Paul di Filippo
The Big Finish Companion v1, by Richard Dinnick
Last books finished
Double Down, by Mark Halperin and John Heileman
Crowe's Requiem, by Mike McCormack
Jane Austen, by Claire Tomalin
[Doctor Who] Speed of Flight, by Paul Leonard
Last week's audios
Antidote to Oblivion (6/Flip)
The Dying Light (Jamie/Zoe/2)
The Time Machine (11)
Current: Luna Romana (Romana/4)
Next books
The Snowman, by Jo Nesbø
Empire of the Sun, by J.G. Ballard
Evening's Empires, by Paul McAuley
[Doctor Who] GodEngine, by Craig Hinton
Books acquired in last week
God's War, by Kameron Hurley
Evening's Empires, by Paul McAuley
Ack-Ack Macaque, by Gareth L. Powell
The Adjacent, by Christopher Priest
Ancillary Justice, by Ann Leckie
Links I found interesting for 05-02-2014
- What is it about the Lib Dems and Sci Fi?
Yougov’s database raises more questions than answers.
- How the U.S. Exports Global Warming
The profit motive.
- Eurointervju
I’m in the 1.2.2014 broadcast, starting about 1 minute in.
Links I found interesting for 04-02-2014
- The Best of BBC One’s Walk On The Wild Side
From 2010. Hilarious.
- Car-to-car talk: Hey, look out for that collision!
What my brother is working on.
- Letters on women in science fiction
The young Isaac Asimov wanted to keep women out.
- The Illustrated Guide to a Ph.D.
A bit optimistic…
- Potent Pro-Israel Group Finds Its Momentum Blunted
AIPAC in trouble?
- Merkel makes U-turn, backs Juncker for Commission job
Enda Kenny as dark horse?
- Former UKIP spokesman was kidnapping gang ‘boss’
You couldn’t make it up.
- Gagauzia Voters Reject Closer EU Ties For Moldova
It’s a tough sell in Comrat.
- Holding Sri Lanka to Account
New York Times calls it right.
Links I found interesting for 03-02-2014
- Atos scandal: Benefits bosses admit over half of people ruled fit to work ended up destitute
Speaks for itself.
- MAD Magazine’s parody of The Shining (“The Shiner”)
I thought it was funnier in 1981. (I was 14.)
February Books 2) Crowe’s Requiem, by Mike McCormack
A short fantasy novel, which has been on my list of sf and fantasy set in Ireland for a while. Crowe is drawn partly from Oskar in Die Blechtrommel, in that he has a biologically unusual childhood and adolescence, and then like Stephen Dedalus he heads off to university in Dublin. Though in fact his experience is closer to that of the unnamed protagonist of At Swim-Two-Birds, with some turns of phrase particulalry in the first half of the book sounding very Flann O'Brien-ish. Crowe goes through sinister medical experiences and emotional trauma with his lover, and does not get a happy ending; and we wonder a little how reliable a narrator he has been. I felt a little let down by the ending, but most of the book was very good, and I am surprised not to have heard more about it.
February Books 1) Double Down, by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann
I absolutely loved the previous book by these authors, covering the 2008 US election campaign, a small part of which became the basis of the brilliant movie Game ChangeDouble Down, refers to Romney's determination to stick to his guns as a right-wing candidate rather than be dubbed a flip-flopper, and his unwillingness to even try to soften the impact of his self-inflicted blows is consistent.
The most disturbing point for a foreigner is the huge role of fund-raising in the campaign. Jeb Bush, whose personal fortune is of the order of $1.3 million, said that he could not afford to run. Rick Santorum, whose politics are of course completely repulsive, actually evokes some sympathy when a lack of financial resources makes him completely unable to capitalise on his early successes. Romney refuses to bankroll his own campaign, having, he felt, spent enough on it in 2008, and consequently nearly runs out of money. Obama hates fund-raising almost as much as debating, and in the end the team more or less give up on him and start using Michelle instead. America, where anyone can be President, as long as they are richer than Jeb Bush.
There are some nice vignettes. Paul Ryan, settling down for the Republican convention in Florida, is unwillingly hooked by a showing of Game Change which he comes across while channel-hopping. A senior Republican campaign official is so appalled by Clint Eastwood’s speech that he is physically sick. But more cheerfully, a carefully timed plan to reveal Obama’s support of gay marriage is thrown into complete disarray when Vice-President Biden, quite spontaneously, makes the same political call; and despite the botch of the announcement, there is absolutely no blowback. The times, they are a-changin’.
Links I found interesting for 02-02-2014
- 7 Theories of Why Putin Freed Khodorkovsky
“Ни один сколько-нибудь серьезный наблюдатель… ” “No serious observer… “
- Nurse makes heartfelt apology after Atos forced her to trick disabled people out of benefits
Inside Atos, and the UK’s war on the disabled.
January Books 21) The Death Pit, by A.L. Kennedy
Here's a total surprise: the BBC are following up last year's sequence of short ebooks featuring each Doctor in succession with another series of short ebooks, under the name Time Trips, also to be written by well-known writers. I don't know how I had missed them – this first one was published in December, and the next, published in January, is by Jenny Colgan.
Anyway, the estimable Scottish writer and comedian A.L. Kennedy has written a short but entertaining romp, with Tom Baker's Doctor (very much in his Tom Baker persona) investigating strange and 'oribble goings-on on a bunker of a Scottish golf course; there's bad management and good romance as well, all in a nice short package. A good start to this series.
January Books 20) Pest Control by Peter Anghelides
I somehow missed this when it first came out back in 2008 – the very first New Who original audiobook, a story that was never published in hard copy, but just read by David Tennant on two CDs. It's actually very good, with Tennant doing all the voices – his Doctor, Donna, various other characters including a centaur with an Ulster accent – and narrating in his native Scots burr. I thought the story was a notch above average – centaurs and humans are fighting, but giant insects and huge robots make an appearance too, and there's some consideration of body shape and destiny, and telling the truth. Glad to have caught up with this at last.
January Books 19) The Rabbi’s Cat vol 2, by Joann Sfar
A compilation of two albums telling two quite different stories. The first, "Heaven on Earth", is a bit of a meditation on stories and telling them through the mysterious figure of Malka, the Rabbi's cousin whose companion is an aging lion, set against the real background of the rise of an anti-Semitic regime in Algiers in the mid-1930s. In the second, "Africa's Jerusalem", the Rabbi, his cat and friends set off to explore their continent, taking an improbably indirect route from Algiers to Ethiopia which brings them into contact with another icon of bande dessinée who happened to be in the neighbourhood:
I read this in English translation, which was just as well as the second volume also features a lost Russian character (who is able to talk to the cat) and I might not have got the linguistic nuances in the original French.
Sfar says in his introduction to the second album that he was trying to write about racism. I'm not sure that he quite managed to address colonialism or race – there are various scenes of the urbanised rabbi and friends (and cat) dealing with tribes which seemed a bit cliched – but he did at least widen his canvas.
Links I found interesting for 01-02-2014
- The orign of 0°F
Mr Fahrenheit basically made it up. (With help.)
- It’s Raining Men becomes anti-Ukip protest song
Hee!
- Heart-attack victim in cash-axe shock
Man has heart attack during health test, is fined for not completing it.
- Mentally ill woman in coma: fit to work?
Atos thinks so. Marvellous,. eh?
- Economic aspects of Catalan independence
Interesting discussion in comments.
- Clarity
A poem by Roz Kaveney.